The present invention relates to hybridoma cell lines and monoclonal antibodies produced thereby. More specifically, the present invention relates to novel hybridoma cell lines which produce a monoclonal antibody specific for antigens present in cells derived from specific mouse inbred strains and to the monoclonal antibodies produced thereby.
The genetic background of mouse inbred strains is characterized by a wide variety of gene markers. These markers are effective tools for classifying mouse strains. Recent years have seen rapid development of genetic engineering and embryological engineering technologies. One example is the chimeric mouse reported by Tarkowski in 1961 (Nature, 190: 857-860). This mouse is constituted with at least two cell populations derived from different origins and has been used as an experimental strain for investigating environmental factors affecting developmental mechanisms, cancer developmental mechanisms and gene expression. As tissue analysis is required for the analysis of chimeric mice, numerous methods for identifying the origins of cells which constitute the chimeric tissues have been developed. Analysis of a chimeric mouse by an immunohistochemical method using antibodies has been reported (H-2; Ponder, B. A. J., et al., J. Embryol. Exp. Morpho., 76: 83-93, 1983 and GPI; Oster-Granite, M. L. & Gearhart, Dev. Biol., 85:199-208, 1981). However, the method is not effective because it can not sufficiently analyze the chimerism of all tissues in an individual.
One of the inventors reported an effective method for analyzing the chimerism of all tissues in an individual using polyclonal antibodies(J. Cell Biol., 107, 257-265, 1988). However, in this method, only an extremely small number of antibody-producing animals were obtained by immunizing between mouse strains and the antiserum of each antibody-producing animal had different specificity for an antigen specific to the mouse strain. The most significant disadvantage of the method was that only a small amount of the antiserum was obtained.